"Which school did she choose?" Mrs. Muckleroy asked.
"None of them. Something happened that made her decide to stay home."
"For heaven's sake, what?" Miss Julia wanted to know.
"Some of the other girls in her high school became jealous of her— because she was going East to school, you see. They began writing nasty notes and putting them in her desk at school. They started a rumor she was pregnant— by the school janitor! And you know kids; they believed it. The rest of her senior year was a living hell. My dear sweet Ellen became so depressed, Mama had to have her committed to a mental hospital."
"But why— why would they do that?"
"Because she was FAT!" Monica bit into her fourth cream puff.
Biggie looked daggers at Monica. "Was that it?" she asked Laura.
Laura nodded, wiping away another tear. "She was the only one of us girls who had a weight problem. She took after two of our aunts on my father's side. It wasn't her fault— it was genetic, don't you see? Ellen wasn't even a heavy eater. She just metabolized her food differently— and she was so sweet and funny, we never even thought about her weight until that happened. Then we knew we couldn't ignore it any longer. She was sick because of her size; it was as plain as day."
"I'm sure glad I don't have that problem," Babe said. "I never gain an ounce no matter how much I eat." She got up from the table and started reloading her plate just to prove it.
"Just wait until you hit forty." Grace glared at her.
Babe stuck out her tongue at Grace.
"So what happened to Ellen?" I asked. "Did she ever get to be an actress?"
"No. When she came out of the hospital, she was changed. All the spark had gone out of her. She didn't seem to care about anything anymore, and within a year, she weighed over four hundred pounds. The family was worried and urged her to look for a job in Tyler where we could look after her."
"Nobody would hire her I bet." Monica is my friend, but she has a smart mouth on her.
"That's right. She couldn't find work. She went to the community college for a semester and lived at home with Mama and Daddy. In her spare time, she would help out down at the little theater, painting sets and being stage manager, stuff like that. They never seemed to have a part for someone her size. By that time I had married my first husband and had a home of my own in Tyler. We used to go out to lunch from time to time. By then Ellen had lost her sunny nature. She hardly ever did impressions anymore or told jokes. We all missed her infectious laugh. Then two things happened. The first was, Ellen got a job. Oh, it wasn't much of one. She worked in the stockroom of one of those giant office supply stores. She spent all day loading heavy cartons onto shelves and pushing furniture around." Laura paused, thinking. "She seemed happy, though, making her own money for the first time. She even lost a few pounds. Then one day the store held what they called a Review Day. That's when the big shots from the regional office would visit to grade the store's efficiency. Ellen was behind a stack of heavy boxes working away when she heard one of the inspectors talking to the assistant manager. He said, 'Get that fat heifer out of here before she falls down and we have a lawsuit on our hands.' Poor Ellen got her purse and walked right out of there without even turning in her resignation."
"I can't believe it. How cruel." Miss Julia was incensed.
"What was the second thing that happened?" Monica wanted to know.
"The second thing was, she fell in love."
"Sad," Mrs. Muckleroy murmured.
"Yes, it was. She fell for the executive director of the theater group. We never knew why. He was a little, stooped-over man who had sparse hair and wore wire-rimmed glasses. I guess it was their mutual passion for theater that attracted her. Naturally, she never said anything to a living soul— except me that is. But somehow, the others found out. Ellen wore her heart on her sleeve."
"I can relate," Mrs. Muckleroy said. "I wear my heart on my sleeve, too. Don't I, Biggie?"
"I guess," Biggie said. "Did the others tease her or something?"
"Unmercifully. Theater people can be quite cruel without even knowing it. I think it's because they're both creative and maybe just a bit self-involved."
Jeremy Polk had been listening intently. "Now, Laura, that's a pretty broad generalization."
"Spoken like a lawyer," Grace said. "Can't you see why Laura might be just a little one-sided on this? You've heard this story, Jere."
"Right. Sorry, Laura."
"One night," Laura continued, "Ellen went in for a late rehearsal and found the cast putting on an impromptu skit about her and the man. It ended with the fellow running for his life while the actress who played my sister, arms outstretched, tripped over a stool and fell flat on her face trying to catch him. Ellen, tears streaming down her face, ran from the theater to the sound of hoots and laughter."
"That was mean," Monica said.
"She went to my parents' house, took my daddy's pistol out of the drawer beside his bed, and took it back to her apartment." Laura spoke in a flat voice like she had told this story a hundred times. "Ellen lay down on her bed and shot herself in the head. She left a note. It said, 'Don't grieve for me. I'm happy to leave this hideous shell of a body. I love you all. Tonight I shall fly with the angels.'" Laura hung her head. "My baby sister didn't need to die like that. At her funeral I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to protect other young girls from the heartache Ellen had to suffer."
"But how could you do that?" Biggie asked. "You said her weight problem was genetic."
Laura drew herself up tall and sighed. "That's where Grace comes in," she said, her face beginning to lighten up. "Tell them, Grace."
7
Grace leaned her elbows on the table, folding her little square hands in front of her. "I graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in food service and nutrition. My plans were to go into the restaurant business— maybe become a chef someday. A friend of mine who was going into the Peace Corps urged me to join her. 'It's a chance to have a little adventure and see the world,' she kept saying. 'You're going to be working all your life. Have a little fun first.' Well, she didn't know what she was talking about." Grace smiled at her plate. "Anne didn't last a month in the Peace Corps, which turned out to be really hard work with substandard living conditions. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the challenge."
"Where did you go?" Miss Julia asked.
"The Co-operative Republic of Guyana. I ended up going with a team that was assigned to teach modern farming methods to the Indians."
"Where is Guyana?" Monica crumbled a cookie on her plate.
"It's in Africa, darling," Mrs. Muckleroy said smugly.
Grace smiled. "A lot of people think that. Actually, it's in South America. It's between Venezuela, Suriname, and Brazil, and on its northern coast there's the Atlantic Ocean. The country is not very big, but there are miles and miles of unspoiled tropical rainforest and a large savanna— that's grasslands. You should see the Kaieteur Falls. They are immense— and surrounded by trees and wildlife."
"What kind of wildlife?" I wanted to know.
"Oh, many different kinds of monkeys, ocelots, and parrots. They have tapirs there, too, but they are shy and don't show themselves much."
"Get to the diet, hon," Laura said. "I just love that part."
"I will, I will. I just want to fill in a little background first." She took a sip of tea then continued. "I arrived in Georgetown by air, then took a small plane to the Rupununi Savanna where we were to settle in an Amerindian village. It was in February, right after the rainy season. Boy, was it hot! We were greeted warmly by the people and shown to two small huts, which were to be our homes for a whole year. We cooked our food over a wood fire and brought up water from a nearby stream— there are many streams crisscrossing the savanna."
"Ugh. How could you stand it?" Mrs. Muckleroy said.
"Oh, you get used to it. It was the heat that was the worst— that and the insects. We had to check our beds every night f
or scorpions and other vermin. And we had to boil our drinking water. There's always the threat of cholera, you know."
Abner Putnam scraped his chair back and went to stand by the window. I looked and saw that the clouds were getting blacker. The wind had died so not a leaf moved on the two mimosa trees in the backyard. "Think I'll see if everything is taken care of out there," he said, heading for the door.
Jeremy got up, too. "I'm going to see if Rex is up and about," he said.
Laura waved them out of the room. "Go on, Grace."
"Actually," Grace said "their diets were not bad; they relied heavily on seafood and fresh fruit from the forests. They make a spicy stew from fish and thicken it with cassava juice."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Cassava? It's a plant that has a tuberous root, like a potato. Do you ever eat tapioca?"
"Not any more than I have to," Monica put in.
"They have it in the school cafeteria. Yuk," I said.
"Well, tapioca comes from the cassava plant. The Indians used other plants from the savanna— things we in our country are unaware of. That's where I got the diet."
"Why would they need a diet?" Biggie looked skeptical. "I've watched lots of nature shows— and I've never seen a fat Indian."
"You're right," Grace said. "It's the civilized world that overindulges on food. Indigenous folks rarely do. The person who needed to diet was Sammy Spratt, a member of our own team. The poor guy was so overweight that he suffered something awful from the heat and the rigors of life down there. Frankly, I don't know how he ever passed the Peace Corps physical. Who knows? Anyway, things got so bad Sammy was afraid he was going to have to give up and go home— and he really didn't want to do that. The villagers laughed like crazy when he came around. They had never in their lives seen a fat person."
"Poor old Sammy," Monica said.
"Well, you can say this for Sammy, he was a trooper," Grace said. "He was determined not to give up even though he had heat rash in every fold of his body, and he huffed and puffed at the slightest bit of exertion.
"One day I was showing some of the women how to make a salad from some of the native greens. Sammy walked by and they began to titter behind their hands as usual. One of the women, Arawa, asked me why he was so fat. I couldn't tell her. 'I can make him thin,' said the oldest woman in the group. The others laughed and nodded their heads. When I asked her to explain, she said not to worry, that she would brew up a potion that would make him thin in a matter of weeks."
Grace smiled, remembering. "I promptly forgot about it until a week later when I saw that Sammy was noticeably thinner. When I remarked on it, he looked embarrassed but confessed that Mea, the old woman, had been bringing him the potion to drink every night at bedtime. He said he had never felt better in his life. I'll admit, I was concerned. What if she was giving him strong emetics or diuretics that might damage his health? He said no— that his body functions had not been affected."
"And he kept on losing weight?" Biggie asked. "Without going on any diet?"
"That's right. Not only that, his skin tone improved as well as his eyesight and hearing. He felt wonderful! Within the month, he was down to his ideal weight and feeling even better. I asked the old woman to give me the formula for the potion. I wrote it down, put it in my foot-locker, and just left it there. We were so busy with other things."
Just then, Jeremy came back into the room. "Rex wants to rest until three," he said.
"Fine." Laura pushed her chair back and got to her feet. "Suppose we all retire to the living room where we can be more comfortable. Then, if you're interested, I'll tell you the rest of the story."
As it happened, we had to wait awhile before we heard any more. Just as we all got seated in the big living room, the storm hit. A noise like a supersonic jet flying low passed overhead, and all the lights went out. An instant later we heard a sound like an explosion in the distance. The mimosa trees, which had been so still before, were bent almost to the ground. I looked out the window just in time to see a wooden bucket go tumbling across the yard followed by what looked like a piece off the bunkhouse. Next came a round hay bale. As it rolled along, hunks of straw came loose and rose straight up into the sky like helium balloons.
I heard a woman scream, Mrs. Muckleroy I think. Grace Higgins held Laura's hand, while Miss Julia ran to the window to see what was happening. For a second I was frozen on the spot, then Jeremy Polk took charge.
"Everybody move to an inside wall. Hurry!" He grabbed Miss Julia by the arm and pulled her into the middle of the room. "Those windows could implode any second now."
Without a word, we all moved away from the windows and stood in a row like ducks against the back wall waiting to see what was going to happen next. Biggie stood between me and Monica, her arms around each of us. I looked up at the swaying chandelier, wondering whether the roof would hold.
It was over as suddenly as it had started. And the quiet was heavy and damp. Now a steady rain fell outside the window. Dumbly, we looked at one another and moved to our seats around the fireplace. In a few minutes, the door burst open, and Abner Putnam rushed in.
"Is everyone okay?" He was bareheaded and dripping wet.
Grace had taken a seat next to Laura, still holding her hand. Laura looked scared to death. She put her hand to her breast. "Tell me quickly, are the girls all right?"
"The girls are fine," he said. "No damage at all. The tornado missed us by a half mile." He sat on the edge of a chair. "I saw the funnel— between here and town. I watched it come on down out of the clouds. Law me, what a sight! Then when the tail touched down, man I saw whole trees picked up and tossed around like goddamn toothpicks." He picked up a magazine and commenced fanning himself with it.
Laura took a deep breath. "The horses. Are they all right?"
"We got them in just in time." He looked at Biggie. "Rosebud was a big help."
"What about your cows?" Monica asked.
"Cows know what to do in a storm," he replied. "Most of them went down in a dry creek bed and turned their backs to the wind." He looked at Laura. "We did lose a couple of calves, though."
"Sounds like you were mighty lucky," Biggie said. "I wonder how the rest of the county is faring. Do you have any word from town?"
"Oh, my goodness!" Mrs. Muckleroy gasped. "Do you think that thing went through town?"
"Sorry. Don't have a clue. Well, I'd better get out there and crank up the auxiliary generator." He turned at the door. "Folks, thank your lucky stars. We've been mighty fortunate today."
Suddenly, Laura jumped to her feet. "My God, poor Rex. I'd better go see about him." She hurried from the room.
"Is he bedridden?" Biggie asked Grace.
"Oh, heavens no. But he does tire easily, what with the diabetes and having his leg amputated. Sometimes he uses a wheelchair— other times, just a walker."
I heard the front door open and saw Rosebud come striding in. "Miss Biggie, I've had the car radio on. They sayin' the storm just barely missed town."
"What a relief." Biggie sat down with a plop.
"Thank God in heaven!" Mrs. Muckleroy said. "If it got my hundred-year-old magnolia, I'd just about die."
"If it got your tree, it'ud probably get your house, too." Monica smarted off.
"Oh, Lordy, I guess you're right," Mrs. Muckleroy said weakly. She took out a hankie and patted her brow.
"Well, you see, what I mean to say is, it didn't go right through town. It done right smart of damage out on the bypass. Taken out that there Fresh-As-a-Daisy café and the Big Eight Motel, wellsir, the radio says it got plumb flattened."
"Wow! That's close to our house!" My heart turned over. "Rosebud, what about Willie Mae?"
"She's okay, I reckon." Rosebud didn't sound so sure. "They said no houses were destroyed."
"We've got to get home right now." Biggie got up and started toward Rosebud.
"Come on!" Miss Julia grabbed her purse off a table.
"Wellum, we can't do
that." Rosebud shook his head.
"Why?" Biggie wanted to know.
"On account of there's trees down all over the road between here and there. They're sending out crews with chain saws to get them clear." Rosebud looked down at Biggie. "But, Miss Biggie, we ain't gonna get home before morning."
I had never seen Biggie look so scared.
Just then the lights came back on.
Laura came back into the room. "Rex is okay. Grace, will you see to the girls? They must be petrified." She turned at the doorway. "Now you all just make yourselves at home. Feel free to tour the house if you like. Since you'll be staying the night, I'll tell Josefina to get your rooms ready. We'll have supper at seven."
"Come on, Ruby," said Miss Julia. "I've been dying to see the rest of this house."
Rosebud spoke to Biggie. "I'd better go back out and help them fellers down at the barn."
"By all means," Biggie said.
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